June 18, 2009 (WAM) -- Despite the economic downturn, which has taken a toll on e-readiness of countries, the UAE has improved its score and jumped the global ranking by a notch, emerging the top scoring country in the Middle East and Africa. The UAE has seen an improvement in its score from 6.09 (out of 10) in 2008 to 6.12 in 2009, which has resulted in the country being ranked 34 (2008 rank: 35) among 70 countries listed in the Economist Intelligence Unit's (EIU) e-Readiness Rankings 2009. This year's e-readiness ranking tell a story that is consistent with the trajectory of the global economy, the Emirates Business 24|7 said, citing the EIU report.

The financial crisis and resulting recession have hit most countries hard, having a considerable negative impact on their business environment scores. This is part of the reason, along with the changes to the model, that countries as varied as the United States (rank 2009: five; rank 2008: one) and Saudi Arabia (rank 2009: 51; rank 2008: 46) have seen their scores decline, while dropping several places in the rankings. The scores of all but nine of the 70 countries in the study have seen a fall in 2009. This makes the UAE's higher score and ranking even more commendable. Denmark, which has jumped four notches to top this year's rankings with a score of 8.87, has also improved its score from 8.83 in 2008 to 8.87 in 2009.

Sweden, the Netherlands, Norway and the US are the other countries among the Global Top Five. Another major finding from this year's study is that emerging markets continue to rack up big advances in connectivity, or the extent to which people are connected to communications networks. Progress in the "connectivity and technology infrastructure" category of indicators is particularly notable in the Middle East and Africa, Eastern Europe and Latin America. But there remains a large gap between these and mature markets, which may have a negative knock-on effect on the usage scores of less well-connected countries, the report said. Moreover, government ICT strategy in emerging markets is bearing fruit.

Most nations, including the UAE, are making progress in implementing e-government programmes; a few developing countries keep pace and even outperform the e-readiness leaders in some areas. An interesting conclusion the report makes is that ICT development may benefit from the recession. Many countries' economic stimulus packages designed to hasten recovery - notably First World countries hit hardest by recession, such as the US - have big ICT infrastructure projects wrapped up in them. But generally, all new stimulus-driven infrastructure spending, including on railways, power plants and other projects, incorporates a lot of ICT.